Hello, I’m George Simpson and welcome to our 2020 adventure. Tire shootout behind me are the tires that we’ve been testing for the last 15 months or so now this project really has been a labor of love. A lot of blood, sweat and sometimes tears have gone into this tire test and giving you the ultimate details of how each these tires actually perform out there in the wild. Now in the first three or four tires were tested. I got questions from people, Oh, which one of those tires do your favorite tire and I was able to give them a really good answer. You know point-blank this tire / this tire, but as we’ve continued to test and we’ve tested 25 different, 80, 20 and 50 50 tires. My answer has changed. It really depends on the style of riding you’re, doing the type of specific ride that you’re going on what vehicle you’re riding, and it’s just crazy. Literally, if I was going to do a ride to Alaska, I would choose a different tire than if I was gonna ride down to Baja versus.
If I was gonna, go to Colorado and just ride super gnarly rugged Peaks, I would choose a different tire. Completely now the hard part about all these 80, 20 and 50 50 tires the fact that we’re really looking for a unicorn, we want to tire the performs, like a sport bike, tire on the street, never losing traction, we’re looking for a tire. That’S gonna give us major longevity, like 12,000 15,000 miles, it’s absolutely absurd to ask that from a tire that you want to be super sticky, we’re also looking for a tire. It’S gonna roll smooth on the highway and not make any noise, and then we want to get off-road and we want a tire. That’S going to hook up like a knobby tire, I mean it’s really ridiculous. The things that we’re asking the tire manufacturers to produce for us now, the interesting part about that little conversation. There is that there is a tire here in this rack that falls into perfectly each one of those categories, not all on the same tire.
But there is a tire that will give you just exactly the performance that you’re seeking on you a ride now in order to come to you with the perfect 50/50 or the perfect 80/20 adventure tire we took these tires out and put them through their paces. Now, before we did that, I went ahead and documented all of the specific tails that each of these tires have to offer we’re. Looking at tire size, tire weight, tread depth, durometer rating. What the tread ply construction is sidewall construction, how many plies there are the max speed and load ratings, the max psi on the sidewall, whether it’s tuber tubeless, where it was made, and even the price this list here is going to give you a really good insight. As to why some of these tires performed as they did once we had those detailed measurements of each of these tires, we took these tires out into the wild.
We started out in the sand wash to scrub man. We then got off on to some backcountry roads. We did some high-speed twisties up highway 18. We jumped off into the dirt and tested the skills of each of these tires on some relatively rugged off-road. We did some hill climbs, some downhill descents. We had lots of action that we put these tires through now. I’M thinking about how I wanted to present this information to you. I struggled a little bit when I took a look at just the performance of the tire leaving longevity out and leaving price out. I really came down to some really heavy hitting tires. Then, when I factored in the amount of miles that these tires go that weight shifted and then, when I added price into the mix, the weight shifted again. So it really just depends on what you’re looking for for a tire? Are you looking for a budget tire? That’S going to get you lots and lots of miles. We have that tire for you today and I’m going to tell you which tire that is so now before we talk about the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each of those categories.
Let’S take a look at some of the interesting specifics that I found while putting this test together. The first thing is going to be tire weight. As far as front tires go. We have weights from 8 pounds 14 ounces, all the way up to 13 pounds. 7 ounces. Now, interestingly enough, when we did our atv tire test, we found that weight was a huge factor. The tires that were lighter and spun up quicker, tended to do better in certain situations. Now the fact that this test was done on Africa twin and the KTM 1190, I really didn’t feel any loss of power when running any of these tires, no matter how heavy they are. But if you ride a KLR 650 or a smaller displacement bike, maybe a 500cc cb500x or something like that, you might notice the power loss if you use a very heavy tire. So I’m looking at the lightest tires. The lightest 50/50 tire was the Metzler Carew 3. At 8, pounds 14 ounces and the lightest rear 50/50 tire was going to be the Continental tkc 80 at 14 pounds 12 ounces. Now, when it comes to the heaviest tire, lineup the front and rear both go to the Dunlop trail max mission, tire that front tire weighed in at 13, pounds 7 ounces and the rear tire weighed in at 20 pounds eight ounces. That is a significantly heavier tire than some of the others out there in the marketplace, when you think that’s almost five pounds different than the T kcat, that weight difference is huge, like I said, on a smaller displacement bike that doesn’t have a whole lot of horsepower. That weight difference alone will definitely affect the performance and power that you’re putting to the ground now. Another question that I get often is tread depth now the manufacturers don’t typically put out tread depth of these tires and I was really shocked when I did the measurements. There really is a pretty big variance. The deepest front tread depth. We had was 18 30 seconds and the deepest rear was 17 30 seconds.
The deepest front goes to the Anakee wild front and the deepest rear goes to the Mota’s rally, tire and the adventure tire. They both measure the same at 17 30 seconds when it comes to the shallowest, tread depth, we’re looking at five thirty seconds of an inch for the Bridgestone battle-ax, a forty one and seven thirty seconds for the rear of the Bridgestone a X 41 s. Now another huge factor that went into how these tires perform as far as longevity goes, is going to be the durometer reading. We took a durometer and we surveyed every single tire. Now the interesting thing is those tires that have a dual compound. We get two different readings and one in the center and one out on the side. Now let me give you a quick background. In durometer readings, the hardness of rubber compounds are measured by the shore, a durometer, the higher the durometer reading, the harder. The compound a dorama treating of seventy should be used whenever possible, as it offers the best combination of properties for most over occations. Now it’s really interesting. That 70 is that perfect density of rubber for o-rings, because in the results from measuring these tires, that’s pretty much for the majority of these tires fall now the softest tire in the mix is going to be a barometer reading of 66 and the hardest tire in The mix is going to be a durometer reading of 81 66 to 80, one that’s for a pretty big swing. The 66 goes to the Avon trail rider, which is a dual compound tire. The center compound was 72 and the side compound was 66 now the hardest. Durometer reading of the tire group here is a tie. We have a reading of 81 and that tie was between the Metzler Carew 3 and the Dunlop mission tire. So the biggest variance that I saw in durometer readings is really interesting. It’S going to be again that Dunlop trail max mission, tire, the front tire measures a 67 and the rear tire measures an 81 that mixture of rubber hardness is very interesting. So if you’re running the trail max mission, tire that front and rear tire should be wearing out about the same, that front is going to stick like glue to pavement and that rear tire is going to give you a little bit more longevity than you would have Seen if they would have used a softer compound looking quickly at country-of-origin, there’s only one tire that’s made in America and that’s going to – be that Dunlop trail max mission, tire when it comes to the other tires in the lineup, the mixes across the board.
We have China, we have Taiwan, we have Brazil, we’ve got Germany, just all over the board. Now, interestingly enough, the Pirelli scorpion rally tires actually come from three different countries. They come from Brazil, they come from China and they come from Germany. Now. The last thing I want to touch quickly on before we dig into the winners of this tire: shootout is going to, be the plies that are used to make up these tires. Most of these tires out, there have a four ply, tread and a two ply. Sidewall again, there’s a huge variance of what’s used out there. The most commonly used materials are nylon, polyamide, polyester, aramid, rayon, steel and even fiberglass. Now out of this mix, there are six tires that use one steel ply in their tire. Make up. Those tires are going to be the Shenko el5, the Carew Street, the ax 41 s, the a41, the Scorpion rally, the Scorpion rally STR. Now there is one tire in this mix that uses a fiberglass ply. Now it’s two plies of fiberglass. Actually they go into that tire and that tired, you want to guess the brand new Dunlop trail max mission. Tire Dunlop has done a lot of interesting things with this tire that is allowed it to be able to really exceed expectations when it comes to that tire. When you look at it, it looks more like an 80/20 tire than a 50/50, but in all of the punishing that we have put to that tire, we really have proved or confirmed that it truly is a 50/50 tire. Now without further ado, let’s get into the results of the 2020 adventure tire shoot out from shepper all motorsports.
Now, when it came to scoring these tires, I looked at doing a good, better best type scenario, but I ended up going with kind of like the motocross style rating. We have a scale of one to ten one being the best ten being the worst and that tires with the lowest scores are going to win now. The swing between the scores here is going to be between 31 and 71. When we look at all of the categories that are out there, when you talk about a tire that performed really well did about 30 and a tire that was less performing or more expensive or got less mileage than the other tire is going to, be much much Higher up there at that 70 point range now, if we take price and we take mileage out of the mix completely and we just look at pure performance, those numbers shift just a little bit. The best scoring tire has a 22 and the worst scoring tire has a 58. Now when it comes to performance, only our three top tires are going to, be the Michelin Aniki adventure, the Pirelli scorpion rally STR and the Shingo 705. Now these three tires only vary in points by four points. We have the antique adventure coming in at 22, the STR coming in at 25 and the Shingo 705 coming in at 26. Now, if we add mileage into the mix and now we’re taking a look at those tires that performed as they did and now we’re going to add in the number of miles that you can expect to see out of those tires now this is estimated mileage. Obviously, these are not worn out behind us here and it would take us years to be able to put as many miles or to run all of these tires down to their cords. So what I did was I took a look at the measurements that we gothis tires when they were new versus what they look like sitting here now on the shelf, and I also took a look at the web. I looked at what you guys are getting out there and I looked at our customers feedback and I actually surveyed customers who purchased these tires from us to find out how many miles they had gotten on their tires.
So the miles that I’m speaking of here are estimated miles, they really aren’t truth and that truth is going to vary, depending on what you’re riding, how much power you’re put into the ground, how much of a load you’re carrying and how much speed you travel out And the biggest thing is: do you check your air pressure and do you run your tires at the appropriate air pressure for the type of riding that you’re doing so just adding mileage into the mix? We still have those three tires at the top of our list, but the order changes just a little bit. The michelin, antique adventurer stays on top, but the Shenko 705 becomes number two and the Pirelli scorpion rally becomes number three. Now, when it comes to price, we had a huge discrepancy between the lowest and the highest, we’re looking at one hundred and sixty-seven dollars for the cinco 705 and we’re looking at three hundred and thirty seven dollars for the michelin Aniki adventure. Now, how much performance are you going to get out of that? Antique adventure versus the 705 for that huge swing in price, probably the biggest benefit you’re going to get from that mix, is going to, be that dual compound number one you’re going to get a little bit more mileage out of that Aniki adventure and due to their Dual compound, as soon as you get that tire leaned over you’re actually going to stick better to the ground on the antique adventure, then you are on that Chicot 705. Now, looking at that, nearly two hundred dollar difference in price. Are you okay with that? And that is why we sell boatloads of Shenko 705, the price, the value and the performance that tire really is pretty spectacular. But if money is no object and you’re looking for just the best of the best performing tire in this 80/20 segment, I’m going to recommend that you pick up the michelin Aniki adventurer. We punished that tire in lots of different scenarios, and we’ve got to say that that tire really does perform it well for a tire that is meant primarily for street, but also does offroad really well now that we’ve wrapped up the top three 80/20 tires make sure you read all the way to the end. I’M going to give you the top three tires for every single category that we ran these tires through, but that’s going to take quite a bit of time, so I want to get to the meat and potatoes of the 50/50 Plus tires.
So, let’s jump in now. If you’re, looking for the most aggressive off-road tire that you can put on your large adventure bike, that is what we’re going to talk about right now, the 50/50 segment is really huge and those percentages really vary as well. If we’re really looking at this true percentage of the Skorpion rally tire up here, this thing’s more like a 10 percent on-road 90 percent off-road, and then we look at some of the others up here. That truly are a true 50/50, like the heidenau k60 scout. It does good on-road and it does good offroad, but it does have some pretty big compromises in both of those segments and that’s really what allows it to be a good 50/50 tire. Is it the best you can get to get in the dirt? Absolutely not because of that blasted center strip, is it going to be one of the smoother running tires on the cement yeah because of that great center strip? Is it going to give you lots of longevity? Yes, because the durometer reading of that tire is pretty high and that rubber compound is pretty hard not to mention the sidewall on that tire is extremely stiff.
Those characteristics are going to, get allow you to get lots of mileage, but when it comes to cold and wet weather, that tire isn’t going to perform very well now, unfortunately, due to those concerns that I talked about in each of those different areas, that’s why the Heidenau k60 scout did not make the top of our list also combined with the fact that is one of the more expensive tires in the lineup and part of the reason, for that is. You can literally get 12 to 15,000 miles out of that tire, if run in the right conditions. Now that k60 scout is going to, be the optimum tire for those of you who are looking to make a single purchase and ride the wheels off of your motorcycle. Now, when it comes to mileage, the second highest mileage tire here in the lineup is going to be the Mota’s tracks, Nader GPS, tire that tire is a phenomenal tire. It gives you 50/50 traction one direction and mostly off-road traction flipped around and run the opposite direction. Now, you’re not going to be flipping tires as you get to specific areas, but if you know you’re going to be riding more hardcore, off-road use the mostly off-road pattern. If you’re going to be riding mostly on the street, then use the 50/50 pattern. That tire is a great tire with a nice rubber compound feels good on the road and gets you lots and lots of mileage. Now, when looking at mileage are adding mileage into the mix, two more tires popped up into that top range. The Mota’s tracks need a rally and the Moto’s traction aider adventure tires. Those are two very good tires if you’re looking to get maximum off-road capability and great longevity as well.
Now we’ve talked about mileage, let’s jump into performance of these 5050 tires and who is going to be the first second and third place winners in our 2020 adventure tire shootout, when looking at the results, if we’re looking at performance, only the best performing tires scored a 29 and the least performing tire scored a 67. That is a huge swing in the numbers when looking at how these tires performed out there in the wild, as you guys might have guessed from the testing that I’ve done and from my feedback while out there on the trail, the Bridgestone, a x41 tire is the Best performing 50/50 tire that you can put in a motorcycle now that does come to a very big drawback. If you take a look at the tread of the Bridgestone paddle ax ax 41, and this Dunlop shell max mission, tire you’re going to see about a thousand miles, we’ve put on this Bridgestone, and this guy here has almost 3,000 miles on it. Now you can see that the tread depth difference of those two tires is relatively extreme and that’s really what knocked that ax 41 off of first place as we get further into the results of this tire test. Now I’m looking at the 50/50 segment, I’m gonna go ahead and give you the top five best performing tires, and the reason that I’m going to 2:5 for this group is because the percentage of dirt versus Street on these tires is huge. So the top five number one is going to be the Bridgestone battle, ax ax, forty one number, two, the Dunlop trail max mission. Tire third place comes in the Moto’s traction aider GPS fourth place is the Michelin Anakee, wild and fifth place. Is the Pirelli scorpion rally now some of you might question how the Scorpion rally could have got into those top five, but it really is because it performed so extremely well in the off-road portion of the test. It basically blew all of these tires out of the water as far as its performance in the sand in the dirt on the mountains over baby heads, the construction of that tire and the super knobby tread pattern really allowed it to perform. Well, now, looking at those top five tires, we’re going to have several different tires out there, the most aggressive off-road tire you can put on your motorcycle, the Pirelli scorpion rally.
In my opinion, the second best performing off-road tire up here. All-Around performer is going to be this Bridgestone battle, ax ax 41 phenomenal performance, but it comes at a price. This thing you’re only going to get about two 3,000 miles out of before you’re buying your next set of tires. Moving on up the next most aggressive tire that you’re going to find this lineup is going to be that michelin, Anakee wild tire. That is a great tire off-road and it does good on-road as well. People are getting four or five thousand miles out of that tire. So if you’re looking for a super knobby tire that gets great longevity, that’s one that you should probably take a look at the next two tires line up are going to be high mileage tires the Dunlop trail Max mission, tire you’re, probably looking at summer between six And eight thousand miles and then the Mota’s traction later GPS, tire a lot of guys that I’ve talked to have gotten 10,000 miles out of that tire. It’S a great tire does great offroad. It has great street manners and it can get you anywhere. You need to go when you get off the tarmac.
Now we add price into the mix. The lowest set of tires you can get up here is a hundred and sixty six dollars. That’S going to be the shink oe8 for 805. That’S a very aggressive, very well performing tire on the street, it’s extremely inexpensive, but the mileage is pretty lacking when it comes to that tire. But if you’re looking for a tire, that’s going to do well in the dirt and do well on road and it’s extremely inexpensive that shink OE, 804 805 combo is definitely the tire combo. I’M going to recommend for your particular application. Now, when adding price into the mix, this really surprised me quite a bit. We have the least expensive set of tires, the Shingo elo 4805 and right around one hundred and sixty-seven dollars for the pair. You then jump up to the most expensive tire here in the lineup, which is three hundred and fifty dollars, and that just happens to be the last tire that we tested that might us eat end to car tire. Now that tire is a phenomenal off-road tire. I really liked it it handled California rain grooves just perfectly, but I am melting. The tread off of those tires they’re not up here on the rack today, because they’re still mounted on my KTM 1190 adventure R.
Now I’ve only got 500 miles on those tires, and this is what they currently look like. But again, if price is not an option – and I was going to go – do some extreme off-road riding that eat end to car tire is amazing. So right now we’re going to roll into the official closing of this video, but stick around we’re going to continue after that closing to roll out with the top three performing tires in every category that we rode the tires in and that we’ve graded them on. So, if you’re, looking forward to those details, stick around we’re going to give you all those specific details broken down one by one and there you have it those there are. The official results of the 2020 adventure tire shoot out from tire shopmotorsports. If you have any questions about any of the tires that we have ridden on, please leave a comment down below. If you have an experience that you want to share about the set of tires that you were running on your motorcycle we’d love to hear about that too, so, please leave a comment. Well, thank you for joining us on this epic tire testing adventure.
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